Humanitarian intervention

The Libyan war so far

I WISH it were otherwise, but my worries that America's military intervention in Libya will extend the civil war and increase the number of people harmed or killed, relative to a no-intervention baseline, are not abating. Rebel forces are in "panicked retreat", losing the gains they had made with the assistance of allied air support. The situation does not seem promising. The Times paints a picture of disarray:

The retreating column seemed rudderless, a sea of vehicles and fighters armed with infantry weapons and light rockets, but lacking the resolve, training or leadership to stand up to even a modest display of force by Colonel Qaddafi's conventional armed forces. They were an unmistakably intimidated lot.

After several minutes of wild driving, some of the rebels tried to regroup, pulling over on the shoulder of the highway between Brega and Ajdabiya beside an abandoned restaurant and a small mosque.

A man standing on a pickup truck and brandishing an assault rifle led a crowd in chants of “God is great!” Morale appeared to stabilize.

Then a single artillery shell or rocket exploded several hundred yards away, kicking up dust and black smoke. The crunch of the impact made the rebels flinch.

The chanting ceased at once. The rebels scattered, dashing for their vehicles and speeding east anew, their panic both infectious and a display of an absence of command and control.

If the Western air strike campaign continues to fail in stopping Qaddafi's forward march, President Obama, as well as European leaders, will be forced to choose between two similarly unattractive options. Either escalate Western involvement in the civil war, as many are urging him to do, and risk entangling the U.S., and possibly American lives, in a conflict with no clear outcome or end-point. Or decline to escalate, allowing Qaddafi to continue toward a victory, and toward the "house to house" slaughter he so openly promised, in which the U.S. would appear complicit.

Meanwhile, the danger rebel forces pose to Qaddafi-sympathising civilians has become so serious that NATO has seen fit to inform rebel leaders that they too might find themselves on the business end of allied bombs should that be required to keep civilians safe. A scenario in which NATO starts bombing the very forces they previously helped would have "bad optics", as they say in Washington. And then there is the report that Mr Obama authorised covert CIA operations in Libya some time in the past few weeks. This suggests a level of American involvement beyond airstrikes for civilian protection, and enlivens the fear that America may well get sucked into another full-blown war.

However, Spencer Ackerman of Wired reports that Robert Gates, the out-going secretary of defence, is adamant that Mr Obama will not, say, authorise the deployment of ground troops. "Trouble is", Mr Ackerman writes,

Gates was as clear as mud about how the war ends if one of Gadhafi's commanders doesn't overthrow the Libyan dictator. He said it was hard to imagine how Obama would tolerate Gadhafi retaining power, even though regime change isn't a military mission. Legislators of both parties were incredulous at that presentation of the U.S. goals.

Whether Mr Qaddafi is unseated by the disorganised rebellion, one of his own generals, or by allied forces, according to Mr Gates, the prospects of civil amity in the aftermath are poor. Mr Ackerman reports:

The challenge of governing Libya after Gadhafi goes is a daunting one, in Gates' telling: balancing tribal interests and weaving together a coherent nation. Those tribes will play a “major role” in any future Libyan politics. Hmm, what costly, long wars already fought by the U.S. military does that sound like?

The possibility that American intervention in the Libyan civil war will turn out to have enlarged rather than minimised a humanitarian disaster is no idle worry. I still hope that this time is different, but the news over the past two days is making it harder.

@ hedgefundguy: "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it's a duck."

If anything, the fact that a Libyan rebel shouted "God is great" shows that it's just a regional war-cry and not a terrorist slogan. Is it such a surprising notion that Muslim extremists try to appeal to Muslim cultural traditions? It certainly doesn't mean that those traditions were pro-extremist to begin with. So that leaves us with something that quacks like a duck, but doesn't walk like one or look like one. I say it's not a duck.

Well, if you can't stop a conventional military operation from the air in Libya, of all places, when you have absolute air superiority, why not scrap the Air Force and turn the Navy's aircraft carriers into combined air-sea cruise ships ?

You gloss over the fact that Gaddafi's minions continue to drop like flies, that the rebels now have a stable revenue source in selling oil to Qatar, and that there is a "secret" enjoy in the UK right now discussing surrender measures. Did I say gloss? I meant completely ignore these developments.

In addition, this insurgency will not die down unless Gaddafi is removed, otherwise anarchy will develop the country and plague the Colonel till the day he dies. For a tyrant like Gaddafi (and especially his sons), there is little reason to continue this fight.

The prospects for civil amity may be poor. But the prospects with Qaddafi in charge were not exactly wonderful either now, were they? The rebels may be an enormous distance, philosophically, from the Western ideal of liberal democracy. But to suggest that we not support them on that account is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Even small steps forward should be welcomed.

There is a third potential outcome missed by Mr. Fisher: partition. Let Qaddafi keep Tripolitania (where he's still relatively popular) and give the rebels Cyrenaica. Neither entity has the power or legitimacy to control or govern the entirety of Libya, and instituting a DMZ between Sirte & Ra's Lanuf would allow NATO airpower to simply patrol the gap, and immediately stop the violence against both civilians & combatants.

Oh I thought this kinetic military action was suppose to be over by now.

ohhsweetconcord,

Did you say oil? Would that be the Libyian oil that the Western nations could not buy because they had a trade embargo on Gaddafi? Would some of the proceeds from our sale to our new rebel "friends" be going to Al Quaeda?